Red Planet Hot for Water Find

Decades ago, some of you may have watched a Sesame Street cartoon where a man in the desert says Agua! Agua! as he looks for water. Well, it's been like that for Mars scientists for years. They've been looking for water in the Martian desert but couldn't find it. But, now that they have the Phoenix Mars Lander in the Martian arctic plain, they have the tools needed to see if there really is water on the red planet.

When the news on ice sublimating from the trough made in the Martian soil came out, people hoped for the best. Firstly, that it was water ice. Water on Mars would answer a lot of mysteries, like landscape features thought to have been made by water action in the past. Now that the NASA has just announced that the robot is about to deliver Martian soil to its wet chemistry laboratory, scientists and laymen alike have their fingers crossed. Another major thing scientists hope to find is organic matter, which will up hopes in finding microbial life on Mars.

Click here for a video on the Phoenix Lander.

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Unresolved: The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls

Even before Indiana Jones, there were already the crystal skulls of Mexico which captured the imagination of historians and laymen alike.

For more than a century, a handful of skulls, maybe a dozen (or so) of them purportedly discovered among ancient ruins and believed to be of Mesoamerican origin, stirred controversy and tales of aliens and remnants of the lost city of Atlantis.

The said skulls gained the public's interest since they were carved with such detail and accuracy that it was hard to believe they were made using ancient implements. Some believed their purposes were more than just ceremonial. Professor Michael Smith of the Arizona State University says skulls were prominent in ancient Middle American, specifically Aztec culture, where gods were portrayed as such.

Research done by the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution revealed that modern tools could have been used to carve and polish the skulls. Thus, the earliest dates that were given them were late nineteenth century. An accurate material dating isn't forthcoming, and thus, the conclusion is only speculative without any hard evidence. Still, no such skulls had ever been found in any official excavation.

Notwithstanding the findings, the crystal skulls will remain either on display or stored in that place where mysterious objects are crated for future research.

Read about the Steven Spielberg movie on the subject and view the trailer, click here.